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Ida Welker
Ida Welker (née Kenzel) (she has likely gone back to using her maiden name after her husband's death), played by Cloris Leachman, is Lois' conniving, inhumanly evil mother. Biography She appears to have a Slavic accent and may be from Eastern Europe. It it is highly implied that she and her husband are from Croatia, due to the Croatian flag and a picture of the Zagreb cathedral in the background of the episode "Ida's Dance" the same episode where she and a group of women who are exactly like her, celebrate St Grotus's day, a holiday native to Eastern Europe, and many of the traditions were applied respectively such as "the dance where mistakes are long remembered" and the baking of the enormous tart that was hard to make and didn't taste good. Ida once met a wealthy Chinese man named Mr. Li. She drugged him continuously to put him in a state of bliss, then planned to marry him. The Wilkersons discovered what Ida was doing at the wedding, and she wasted all of the pills on them so they couldn't call the police. The drugs wore off on Mr. Li and he immediately left. Lois claimed that this was one of the most diabolical things Ida has ever done. One of the many aspects of her selfishness is that she hired a slave to work for her named Raduca(portrayed by Rheagan Wallace). She later revealed that the main reason she brought her to America was to marry Raduca and Reese, and she made Reese and Malcolm compete to marry Raduca in challenges. The first challenge involved the boy's ears being tied to strings and the first one to step back five spaces was the winner; Reese won this challenge. The second challenge involved trying to escape a bag with a fighting pitbull and a cat inside; Reese won this challenge as well. Malcolm won the next challenge because it dealt with intelligence, but even though Malcolm won, Reese eventually married Raduca in Las Vegas. It was shown in the two part episode Baby Part 1 and Baby Part 2, that Ida is a real bigot towards black people. Lois, Francis and Piama used Abe and his poker buddies in their scheme to drive her away. Ida eventually moves in with her younger daughter Susan when she explains the misunderstanding. It was also revealed in Garage Sale, that both Victor and Ida favor Susan because she was talented and high class. She has called on her when she needed help. Ida has also treated Lois with contempt because she was classless, bossy and untalented. It was also shown in Victor's Other Family, that she despises his secret family and demands for Sylvia's family to hand over Victor's pension to her. During the trip to Mr. Dietrich's office, the pension is revealed to be 30 dollars in Canadian and because of the dispute with the other family, he isn't confident in breaking even. Lois pleads with Ida to drop the case, but she refuses. When confronted why, she tells her that she doesn't care if she loses money on it, she is Victor's common law wife and is entitled to his pension. The only time she has shown love for Lois was while she was attempting to help her with a potential lawsuit for the pension against Sylvia's family. She encouraged Ida to work on her behavior so that way people can see her as more than a miserable, chain-smoking and greedy person. It was eventually revealed that Ida had a relationship with a man whom was Lois' biological father and not Victor. Upset at the revelation, And now realizing that now matter her is always gonna be a monster, Lois abandons the case and returns to California with Reese, Malcolm and Jamie. In the episode "Ida loses a leg" it was shown she has great care for her family while outside smoking a cigarette, she observes Dewey chase after his toy car into the street with a dumpster truck who is speeding toward him distracted by flossing his teeth. Ida then runs into the street to push Dewey out of harms way losing her leg in the process. Later into the episode Dewey makes a leg model of Ida's leg in which he thanks it for saving his live only to have his new dog dig it out of the ground and carry it into the garage. Hal and Dewey attempt to lure out Champion (Dewey's dog) by throwing steaks and poking them with a stick, they later end sence with hal telling him to "Live up to his potential, they later decide to get rid of the dog. Personality Ida Kenzel is greedy, racist, manipulative, black hearted, chain-smoker, and is quick to take offense. Despite the fact that she makes the lives of everyone she interacts with a living hell, she complains about her own life almost every time she opens her mouth. There is absolutely no pleasing her as she finds the dark side of even the nicest and most normal things in the world and always finds something to complain about. The whole family hates her, though Reese is shown to still have some love for her. She is cruel to the point that she stabs Francis in the thigh with a knitting needle, decides to sue Hal and Lois after slipping on a leaf, (Grandma Sues) injures Francis by squeezing his crotch, and withheld Christmas gifts because of minor offenses (Christmas). Hal even compares Ida leaving them alone to Christmas. Relationships Victor Welker Ida seemed to have a good relationship with her late husband and the two were a perfect couple as they were both terrible parents and grandparents. Ida seemed to be very saddened when her husband died. However, Ida was unaware that Victor was disgusted by her and often left to have affairs with other women. Throughout their "marriage", he often left Ida to raise Lois by herself. Victor married to another woman, a good natured lady named Sylvia and he had a daughter, Roberta with her. Victor often came back to Ida mainly because he loved Susan who was the only one he came back for. He didn't care for Ida and Lois in any manner. However in Victor's Other Family, it was revealed that Ida wasn't legally married to Victor at all. Reese Wilkerson Reese appears to be the only grandchild that Ida truly cares for most likely due to his destructive talents and manly nature though on some occasions Reese is shown to dislike her such as in "Ida's Boyfriend" when he learned she would be moving to China and along with his father and brothers was excited at the news and was also angered that she would be babysitting him and Malcolm as a punishment from Lois. Reese appears to love her offer in "Bride of Ida" to win three challenges to marry her maid Reduka and compliments his grandmother's heritage. Ida possibly believes that Reese is the only one of her grandchildren to be capable of finding a wife (she does not consider Piama to be Francis' wife). Ida however was disgusted that Reese lost the challenge at the end to Malcolm. However in "Graduation" she is thrilled at Reese's plot to detonate a barrel filled with crap at his ceremony to get the head janitor fired and she advises him on always having someone to take the blame for his actions. Dewey Wilkerson Not much is known about Ida's opinions on Dewey because they don't interact much, except for one time in the episode Ida Loses a Leg, when she went out of her way to save his life, by preventing him from being run over by a truck. This caused her to lose one of her legs in the process. Since then, Ida has stated that Dewey owes her his life for saving him. She didn't directly interact with him much before the events of that episode so not much is known about what their relationship, except for one short interaction in Grandma Sues, when Dewey told Ida that the family was going to miss her, to which she replied "Even the little one lies." Dewey's feeling on Ida, on the other hand, are very clear. Dewey is afraid of Ida, not only because of the obvious fact that she's a horrible person, but also because of multiple things she did to him when he was very young, shown by flashbacks in the episode "The Grandparents". One of them revealed that she dropped Dewey on his head as a baby. Francis Wilkerson Ida and Francis despise each other. Unlike everyone else who fakes it, Francis refuses to make nice to Ida and always makes it known he hates her. Ida appeared to care for Francis when he was little and even bought him a toy he wanted badly for Christmas but when he was handed the phone to talk to her, he insulted her by calling her "poopy", making her despise him. Among with all the other things she also had to endure him when he was living with her while Lois was dealing with Reese. Francis despises having to spend time with her as shown in "Christmas" and "Ida Loses a leg". Ida has also physically hurt Francis on numerous occasions such as stabbing him in the leg for provoking her and Francis has made it extremely clear that he wants Ida to die. However, it's revealed in Ida Loses a Leg, that both have one thing in common, they hate Lois for being bossy and seemed to get along for a while. Despite this Francis deeply despises her and in the series finale came close to hitting her with a fire poker after being forced to drive her. Malcolm Wilkerson For unknown reasons, Ida does not care much for Malcolm and considers him to be hopeless and weak and also reveals in "Ida's Boyfriend" that she thinks he is gay. She also does not show any praise for his superior intelligence and even thinks that Reese is smarter than him. She once even caused him to be beaten up by bullies to try and turn him into a tougher individual. Malcolm has tried on a few occasions to get along with her though Ida completely disrespects him and loathes him. She also does not even consider him to be a boy as revealed in "Bride of Ida" though she did show some slight respect for him after he successfully beat Reese at the games to win her maid's hand in marriage though Malcolm did not want her praise at all and was frankly creeped out by it. Throughout the series Malcolm reveals that he truly does not like Ida and was thrilled in "Ida's Boyfriend" that she would be moving away to China. Jamie Wilkerson Ida does not even seem to know or care that Jamie exists as seen in "Ida's Boyfriend" when Jamie was playing with her smokes and Lois drew her attention to it and she simply asked; "Who the hell is Jamie?". The two rarely interact following this. Jamie however is the only one of her grandchildren not to suffer any form of abuse at her hands, though along with the rest of the family was drugged by her in "Ida's Boyfriend" to prevent them from stopping her sham marriage. Lois Wilkerson Lois has a very poor relationship with her mother. Ida disrespects her and insults her whenever she gets a chance and has absolutely no love to share with her. She often blames Lois for making Victor leave her mainly because he is disgusted by her and even Ida. Ida even went as far as to almost sue her for everything she had after falling on her property. (Grandma Sues) Lois deeply despises when her mother visits the family and cannot wait to be rid of her and is so stressed by her visits that her sons are able to get away with trouble easily. Although they never seem to have any positive interactions with each other, Lois seems to still show some kind of care for her deep down. Ida, on the other hand, doesn't return the favor. It is revealed that Ida has mistreated Lois her entire life and saw her as inferior to her younger, more talented sister, Susan Welker and Lois has always wanted to be better for that reason. However in Lois' Sister, Susan pointed out that Lois took the animosity between them and Ida to a new level by marrying Hal for herself. Ida resented Lois for stealing him away from Susan and mistreated her further since then. One time, Lois was talking about her childhood to Jamie and explained that throughout her whole childhood, she's been trying to be something she's not because her mother continuously tried to make her act that way, using the success of her sister as an influence. It was at this point, she made a breakthrough and realized that her mother was the source of all her problems and that all the stress and anxiety in her childhood boiled down to her. (Reese vs. Stevie) On some extremely rare occasions, the two of them manage to get along and have a nice moment such as in the episodes "Ida's Dance" and "Victor's Other Family" although these moments do not last very long. Susan Welker Although the two are never seen interacting on screen, Susan appears to have a much better relationship with her mother than Lois due to the fact Susan was heavily favored over Lois growing up. Ida also seems to prefer staying with Susan than she does with Lois although the two have had conflict a few times in the series such as when Ida left her due to Susan telling her the answer to "Wheel of Fortune". Hal Wilkerson Hal completely despises Ida. He is shown to despise every minute that she spends time with the family and cannot wait to be rid of her as seen in "Grandma Sues" when he packs her bags to leave while she is in the middle of breakfast three hours ahead of her planned departure. Hal is filled with joy in "Ida's Boyfriend" when he learns that Ida plans on moving away to China (until he finds that Ida drugged Mr. Lee into attempting to marry her) and claims that it is like a Christmas gift to the family and also checks to make sure that there will be no interference in her departure, showing how badly he wants to be rid of her. Hal also seemed to show little remorse when she lost her leg saving Dewey's life and was more upset that Lois had to go and take care of Ida. Hal's hatred of Ida is also brought up in "Ida's Dance" where Lois is worried about her mother and plans to go visit her and Hal angrily reminds her that they made a pledge to not take any measures to prolong Ida's life, showing that he does not care if she dies. Ida also dislikes Hal and is nasty to him on numerous occasions. The reason for it, was revealed in Lois' Sister when Susan mentioned how angry Ida, Victor and his own family were with him in marrying Lois instead of her. This was also confirmed in Living Will. Radu Gogorsky In Victor's Other Family, Ida mentioned having an affair with Radu Gogorsky before marrying Victor and Lois' birth. It was unclear what she thought of Gogorsky. When Lois confronted her since her blood type didn't match Victor's own for the DNA test, Ida was forced to admit that Gogorsky is her birth father and that Victor fathered Susan. Angered and betrayed at Ida for lying to her all those years, Lois willingly abandoned Ida's case and escaped with her boys back home. Episode Appearances *The Grandparents *Christmas *Grandma Sues *Baby Part 1 *Baby Part 2 *Ida's Boyfriend *Victor's Other Family *Ida Loses a Leg *Ida's Dance *Reese vs. Stevie (Mentioned) *Bride of Ida *Morp (Mentioned) *Graduation Category:Recurring Characters Category:Characters Category:Female Category:Wilkerson family Category:Welker Family